When I was a child,
I was given a silver necklace by my father,
Told the stories of how it was there when he met my mother
And cherished it dearly.
But as childhood would have it,
I lost the necklace,
In a full contact game of two-hand touch football,
In the backyard of my frenemy neighbor.
I searched for hours in the grass,
Coming across spiders, quarters
The remnants of dog’s passed,
But never again saw the silver chain
With the little cross
That was the closest thing I ever held to God.
Now I look back,
To the necklace, the touch football games
The neighborhood loving brawls,
And realize youth is an object,
It’s something we hold close
But never realize the importance of
Until years later,
When we miss it
Around our necks,
And we regret
Never truly
Falling in love
With what we had
Before it was gone.

My death will be a masterpiece,
Inglorious design,
Tear away the hope for peace,
The loss of all that's mine.

when the thick fog creeping on your back seeps past
consuming sickness that was keeping track, gets lost at last
but this relief is leaping into grief, it's getting deep
and getting black, it's coming fast,
the clouds just weep themselves to sleep
since they can't brace for this attack

i may be awake
i may be asleep
i cannot remember
falling either way this deep

I am a dream.

I am experienced only as I occur
Even then the clarity at best is a stuttering blur.
The strands felt by fingertips lips kiss goodbye
can't repeat or be shared or reasoned much of why.
I am a nightmare.

She said there was zero squared chance of reconciliation
That our lives were not the circle she dreamed,
But two separate lines diverging at a point
Arranged in rays, and some other math terms I never understood
Because she finished top of her class, myself a comforting third
Tier, of the last tier, of those who made it through the door.
And the story has stayed the same, regardless of the term change
I was back in school, receiving a bad grade,
Thanking God for the bell curve, which rang
"Some things always stay the same, but keep trying anyway"
And my averages will remain somewhere between middle of the line
And the bottom of the drain.

So
I will raise my hand for hope,
I will raise my hand for shame,
I will raise my hand to look good,
And to never learn
Quite exactly what I should.

I found you over the rainbow,
In some kind of spectrum glory
Talking colors and how they only matter
When the eyes of the world are closed.
So I kissed you as the sun rose,
All yellows, oranges and light.
Hearts some kind of colliding.
Full spectrum love-shine.
Fading fast to daylight.
Never to return.

Because you are you,
And I will always
Be me;
In love with the notion of color theory
And colorblind to reality

Stories you told, they stuck with me
In my field trips through your memories
I loved to learn the places you'd been.

Places unlike anything I've seen,
Brought to life through storytelling
From France to the Indies; the top of Mount Washington.  

Now today, times change and pass you by
Like cars on the street at night
Yet you never seem to mind.

Your stories that never grow old,
In the aged leather bindings of your soul
Will rest peacefully between you and me.

Time it seems, it learns to dream
When the world keeps on turning
As the pages in your book are running out of ink.

Time it seems, has been kind to me
As I've keep my youth steadily
In kind with the rhyme and the reason
Of your bones.

Time it seems, will catch up to me
Some point before eternity,
In kind, with the rhyme and the reason,
Of your bones.

Feelings turn to confusion
Confusion turns to frustration
Turns to anger,
Turns to action,
Turns to writing,
Turns to poetry,
Which in turn becomes a feeling
That frustrates me entirely.

It’s those times,
With final hugs and long goodbyes,
Tears that wait until the car ride
When it’s just you alone,
But for the stars above,
That you find yourself searching
For that shine across the sky
To signify
There is a chance
To wish
For one last
Goodnight.

I was told,
Some line, some time ago
About bravery being not who killed the dragon
But who had the courage to face it first;
Like learning to love the dark,
Or leaving home before it hurts.